Retribution (9781429922593) (9 page)

“Colonel Mueller has agreed to talk to me?”

“He has a place on Oranienstrasse, right on top of where the wall used to be. I think it's a point of pride with him. He had family stuck on the east side.”

“Wife and kids?”

“They went to Munich for a holiday. We'll be quite secure.”

Driving over to Mueller's apartment the city was alive with traffic, people out on the streets, in the shops and restaurants and sidewalk cafés. The last couple of times Mac had been here the city had seemed dark, even ominous. There'd been a lot of financial problems and readjustment issues when the wall came down. Just trying to come up with a reasonable match for the two standards of living had at times seemed insurmountable. East Germans, especially East Berliners, were needy. It seemed like the West was pouring marks down a bottomless rat hole. Everyone had been tense.

Oberst Mueller met them at the front door of a heavily rebuilt three-story brownstone and took them back to a small book-lined study that overlooked a rear courtyard that had once been bisected by the wall. Now rose bushes blossomed where the concrete sections had stood.

The colonel was a tall man, something over six feet, with an unremarkable build and face that marked him as anything but a military officer and high-ranking member of Germany's secret intelligence service. He was dressed in corduroy trousers and a khaki shirt, the sleeves buttoned up above the elbows. The room smelled of pipe tobacco.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me,” McGarvey said.

“Captain Weisse tells me that you may have come up with something disturbing that might make some sense after the incident in Florida and you could use some help. I'm all ears.”

“This would be a nonofficial request.”

“I understand.”

“The situation between us and Pakistan is delicate, and my government doesn't want to increase the strain if at all possible.”

“But you personally have a situation. And considering what I know about your background, it could mean that you're going to become involved in something violent. Something that neither my government nor yours wants to happen.”

McGarvey wasn't sure that he liked Mueller, though the man had agreed to hear him out. “Captain Weisse came to the United States and gunned down a man you suspected of being a terrorist. First blood was shed on our soil by your agency, not the other way around.”

“Point taken. Did the captain brief you on our ongoing investigation?”

“Yes. And until Florida it seemed that the group you've been investigating was nothing more than assassins for hire, targeting non-Germans off German soil. Not pretty, but considering everything else the BND is faced with, not a high priority.”

“Killing the ex-SEAL was an anomaly,” Mueller suggested.

“I don't think so,” Mac said. “In fact I think that someone hired the organization to assassinate all the SEAL Team Six people who took part in the raid on bin Laden.”

“Al-Qaeda no longer has the money or the influence it once had.”

“No.”

“There are, however, wealthy Islamists in the United States, and of course in Saudi Arabia, who might want to retaliate.”

“They would have nothing to gain.”

“Which leaves Pakistan,” the colonel said heavily, as if it had been a foregone conclusion of his from the very beginning. He got up and turned to the window. “As you pointed out, the situation between your government and that of Pakistan's is delicate. The balance of power—of nuclear power—between Pakistan and India is disturbing to us as well. That said, Islamabad would have absolutely nothing to gain by carrying out such a monstrous plot, which could only end in failure.”

“Retribution,” McGarvey said.

The colonel turned back. “For an extrajudicial assassination. I can see their justification, can't you?”

“We did not attack civilian targets in their country. Nine-eleven is significant for us.”

“Just as the firebombing of Dresden was for us.”

“Yes, and just as the London blitz was for the British,” McGarvey shot back, tired of the game.

“The Nazis are gone,” Mueller said sharply.

“Will you help?”

“Operationally, no.”

“With information, nothing more.”

“We would expect a quid pro quo.”

“Of course,” McGarvey said. “I'd like a copy of your files on the Schlueter woman, along with the Black October Revolution and its members.”

Mueller considered it for a moment. “In return for what?”

“Our file on her, and on the twenty-four SEAL Team Six operators who took part in the raid.”

“The file on the SEALs is of no interest to us.”

“It will be once you come to accept what the Schlueter woman's mission is and why she went to the ISI for backing.”

This caught Mueller's attention.

“We have a photograph of her coming out of ISI headquarters. Until the incident in Florida we had no idea who she was or what she was doing in Islamabad, but now we think we know the connection.”

“Go to your navy. Tell them to take those people into protective custody.”

“That's not going to happen,” McGarvey said. “At least not for now.”

“Just what are you suggesting?” Mueller asked.

“Schlueter and her organization are creating trouble for Germany as well as for the United States. Share the files and I will eliminate it.”

Mueller shook his head. “My government will not allow you to run around Germany shooting people. Point them out, get the proof, and we will arrest them.”

“I would be operating on my own, without the sanction of Berlin or Washington.”

“You will have your files, Herr McGarvey. But once you leave this apartment you will be totally on your own. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“If you commit a crime on German soil you will be arrested and prosecuted. Is this in any way unclear?”

“No.”

“I'll take you back to your hotel and bring the files over as soon as I can arrange copies,” Wolf said. “Probably not till morning.”

 

FOURTEEN

Major Naisir sat in a C-class Mercedes across the street from the Bristol Hotel watching the front entrance. It was a little after ten in the evening, and traffic was heavy. Berliners were gearing up for another night on the town, for which the Ku'damm had always been famous. Personally, he found the city to be garish, some parts of it even revolting.

“It grows on you,” Hamid Jatyal, the ISI chief of Berlin Station, had confessed in his office at the embassy on Schaperstrasse not far from the hotel. But then the man was a Punjabi, a tribe in Naisir's estimation never to be trusted.

“Have you taken care of the little job I asked you to do for me?”

“Yes, the BND captain,” Jatyal said, handing over a slim folder. “As a matter of ordinary routine we keep a loose watch on the BND's headquarters, and we picked up Captain Weisse coming into the building from a rear entrance this morning a few minutes after eight, as you can see in the report. He left for lunch with a friend at the Hansa-haus Bierstube a few blocks away, after which he returned to his office.”

“Has he left for home yet?” Naisir asked. That was forty minutes ago.

“He left the office at approximately eight o'clock, but he went to the Bristol Hotel, where he was inside for a brief period before he emerged with a gentleman whose identity we don't know.”

“Were photographs taken, I hope?”

“Of course. I'll bring them up,” Jatyal said. He opened a program on his desktop. In the first frame Wolf was coming out of the hotel with a somewhat husky man in a dark blue blazer and jeans. In the second shot the man had turned so that he was directly facing the camera. Naisir was shaken, though he did not let his reaction show. It was McGarvey, here in Berlin with the man who had followed one of Schlueter's operators to the States and killed him.

“Where did they go?” he asked.

“To an apartment building on Oranienstrasse that we believe is occupied by a BND colonel. They went inside, and as of five minutes ago were still there.”

“Have your team report to me as soon as they leave the apartment building,” Naisir said.

He'd tried to reach Schlueter, but the number he had was no longer answering. She had changed it again as a precaution, which was sensible. She would contact him when she thought it would be safe.

Sitting in the car Naisir thought about the mission, and the extra task he had given to her to assassinate McGarvey for an additional one million euros. It might be possible to accomplish the task tonight and save the money, he decided.

The same older model Audi A6 as in the photographs pulled up in front of the hotel, and McGarvey got out. He said something to Wolf behind the wheel and then closed the car door. But instead of going directly inside he waited until the BND officer drove off and looked across the street directly at Naisir.

The windows of the Mercedes were tinted enough that it was impossible for McGarvey to see inside, yet Naisir shrank back. The American's reputation was legendary. He was a killer, and by all accounts very good at what he did. Or had been once upon a time.

McGarvey walked down the driveway to the curb and waited for a break in traffic as if he were about to cross the street.

The little prick was challenging him. Naisir, powered down his window and looked directly across the street for a long second before he slammed the car in gear and took off, just making the light at the corner and turning right. His last glimpse in the rearview mirror showed McGarvey still at the curb, watching.

Two blocks from his embassy he pulled into a parking garage and drove to the top level. He called Jatyal's cell phone. The COS answered on the first ring. “Yes.”

“I need two men tonight within the hour,” Naisir said.

“Our field officers? I think I can accommodate you.”

“Not countrymen. This has to be a totally deniable operation. Germans.”

“What exactly do you have in mind?” Jatyal asked.

Naisir told him. “I want this to look like an ordinary street crime. Robbery leading to the unfortunate murder of an American citizen.”

“The American from the photograph with Captain Weisse?”

“Exactly.”

“He has been identified as Kirk McGarvey, a former director of the CIA. Killing him will send shock waves to the highest levels.”

“That's why this can never be traced back to Islamabad.”

The phone was silent for several long beats. Naisir could almost hear the man's brain furiously working out all of the ramifications—not for the operation itself but for his own career.

“I'm not going to do it without authorization from the ambassador,” Jatyal said at length.

“He is not to be involved under any circumstances, and that is a direct order,” Naisir said. “You work for the ISI, not the ambassador. And if you refuse to carry out my orders, I shall have General Bhutani telephone you in the next fifteen minutes.” Lt. General Tariq Bhutani was the director general of the agency.

“My God, it's after two in the morning there.”

“Yes, it is.”

This time Jatyal did not hesitate. “It won't be Germans. I'll send Turks. Four of them.”

“So many?”

“For this job, yes. How do you want to arrange it?”

Naisir told him the location of the garage. “Have them park on the fifth level, in the northeast corner.” It was one level down. “How will I know what they're driving?”

“As soon as I arrange it I'll call and let you know. But you mustn't let yourself be seen by them. This cannot come back to the embassy under any circumstances.”

“It won't. Just see that you send me four capable men who are not afraid to get their hands dirty.”

“The ones I have in mind are already so filthy it's probable they have never been clean in their lives. After all, they're nothing more than Turks who're involved in the drug trade and bringing young girls from Romania and Bulgaria. Enforcers.”

“Have you used them before?”

“These four yes, once.”

“Will five hundred euros each be enough?”

“Yes, but don't identify yourself.”

 

FIFTEEN

In his room at the Bristol, McGarvey was sipping a snifter of very good Napoleon brandy—his first for the evening—as he talked to Otto and Pete back in Langley. Despite the hour they were still at the OHB.

“Sounds like Mueller gave you enough rope to hang yourself,” Pete said.

“At least they didn't kick me out, and Weisse is going to get me copies of their files on the Schlueter woman and her organization. Might be something for us.”

“Tonight?” Otto asked. “Send the stuff to me and I'll get started.”

“Probably not till morning. In the meantime something else has come up.”

“The Schuleter woman's people?” Pete asked.

“I'm not sure,” Mac said. He told them about the Mercedes across the street from the hotel. “The guy rolled down his window and looked right at me before he took off. Dark complexion, black hair, mustache. Definitely not German.”

“Pakistani?”

“Be my guess. Which means the ISI knows I've taken an interest.”

“
If
it's the Pakistanis,” Pete cautioned. She was a charming woman, and among the best interrogators the CIA had ever known, because she was not only patient and kind with her Johns, as she called her subjects, but she was skeptical without letting it show during the typical interview. She gave the outward appearance of being positive about everything, while in reality she trusted nothing—especially anything that seemed like a sure bet.

“Point taken,” Mac said. “But whoever it was had a definite interest in me, and I'd like to know why.”

“Are you coming back in the morning, kemo sabe?” Otto asked. “I think I might be able to come up with something that makes sense.”